FAIRY TALES!

The other day in class, we talked about fairy tales. The lesson that Raquel planned was focused on Cinderella and it was surprising to find that we all could tell the whole story by telling our personal versions. I think that most of us told the Disney version, which by the way, was one of my favorite. We saw that there is a large variety of versions but we focused on those by Charles Perrault, and by Brothers Grimm. I personally, found very interesting those little changes that we could find between one version and the other, but I think the story is brilliant anyway! I can’t even count how many times I have seen it, not only the Disney movie but also that one called Ever After which pretends to refresh this classic fairy tales. This one tells the classic story but there are some others like Elle: A Modern Cinderella which tells the same story but in an actual times. The thing is that I am not here typing to tell you about movies but to tell you that we can adapt a fairy tale to actual times to teach children its main value or message, in order to make it easier to understand, and to make them see that these kind of thing not only happens in fairy tales. Did you enjoy this lesson as much as I did?

That day I found fascinating how such different versions can talk about the same story, which is as I have said before it is a story that I love, therefore I have done some research to learn about another classic fairy tale which I can also find pleasure in watching it. Do you want to know which one is it?

SLEEPING BEAUTY

As a curiosity, you may like to know that the first version was written again, by Charles Perrault in 1697. It was separated into two parts, that is why some folklorists were driven to believe that they were two separate tales in its origin, and then, they became in the Brothers Grimms’ version. Later on, they were joined together by Basile and then, by Perrault. Another curiosity is the unstable name of the princess, since different names like Sun, Moon or Talia have been given to her. Moreover, Perrault named her daughter “L’Aurore”. The Brothers Grimm called her “Briar Rose” and John Stejean gave her the name of “Rosebud”.

In general, I think fairy tales are a qualified way of teaching rather moral or values. Furthermore, these kind of stories, with a familiar structure, can create an ideal context for learning about the writing process. Also, it helps to build student’s background knowledge and to scaffold their creation of original stories. In addition, they are also great to teach about story structure by identifying beginnings, middles and endings in familiar stories, since it is very probable that if not all, almost all children in a class have watch, read or even heard them. Do you agree with me? What do you think?